'Splendid Isolation': How British are you?

The percussive sounds of wrighting are faintly audible as they waft downriver from the eastern shipyards. Seeping through the casements, a stink of industry can be detected. Thick, low cloud threatens a storm. It will never come but instead the ceiling itself will descend, sliding around blackened corners and squatting on the skin of the river. It, too, stinks. Beneath the window and on the far shore, mudlarks can be heard slopping. One cries out. The sound could be good or bad, signifying discovery or despair, but it is solitary. Inside a wooden room, an elderly man looks through away and up over the city. “Would you believe we took Southwark,” he says, this time his wheeze allowing for clarity, and taking a modest sip of Napoleonic brandy. “It was quite the boon, sir, and should keep Gladstone looking over his shoulder throughout the next parliament.” A young voice, now; eager to please, eager yet to mediate his burgeoning authority with tones of respect. “I wonder, my boy. I wonder what the world will look like hereafter. The world. It is something that we have forged, you and I; the British. As a nation, we have given here, taken there. Britain has given Bulgaria back to itself and anew to the world. We have taken Afghanistan and given it freedom – freedom from external threat, freedom to behave as it wishes, but freedom afforded by our throne. We have paid ransoms to threats to our sovereignty with the blood of our countrymen. From this room, on this small island, I have reconfigured the globe. Russia is obsessed with the Levant and those petty sovereignties in Europe spend their lives redrawing their own maps, and yet we have cultivated a dominion on which the sun never sets. Do you not think there is something special about the British that imbues us with such fortitude, such ambition?” The aide hears the question but does not respond. He is staring at a motionless mudlark, the Thames pulling at his prostrate form, soaking into his inadequate clothes. “We have given the world peace. We quelled the Russian aggressors in Crimea. We have defeated China’s rampaging trade ambitions. When I was only ten years old, we vanquished the most murderous despot the world has known at Waterloo. We settled the earth, and then gifted it to all. Britain’s bounty to humanity is incalculable. This is a prosperity undreamed of. I shall be sad not to live to see the true flowering of our efforts.” Turning from the window, the aide says “A cathedral builder would never expect to see his ambition realised, but it would be enough for him to know he had laid his hand upon the eternal.” Disraeli smiles. Outside, the smog has begun its descent and the view of the dead mudlark from the upper windows of parliament is becoming obscure.

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Today, we are being offered an unprecedented chance to choose our identity. The veil of reasoning is thick, however as one dispenses with the arguments one after another until all have been settled, discarded or forced into stalemate, one is left with an irreducible question:

How British are you? Or how European are you?

Question in action is perhaps the essence of theatre, and by offering those who strongly identify as British the opportunity to vocalise, symbolise and activate that identity, we have embarked upon the drama of our time. The moment has arrived for those whose patriotism has been impotent to stand up and, literally, be counted. Echoes of Henry V run through the mind as we choose our side: our country or bloated bureaucracy. What could be more important that the concretisation in law of one's basic identity? For some, their sense of national pride has been systematically shut down and forbidden, restricted by the PC brigade; and all they've ever wanted to do was assert their opinion that Britain is the greatest. One Plymothian in this camp recently expressed his resentment to me at no longer being able to use the n-word because 'they're supposed to be better than [him]'. The scale of Britishness that one may be proud of ranges from a quiet, pipe-and-slippers, church-on-Sunday nostalgia to threatening, racist jingosim. I was recently embroiled in a somewhat heated debate about the EU referendum with a Brexiter which ended with statements from him such as “You’re not going to change my mind.” When all logic and reason has failed (on either side of the fence), this referendum is undeniably a question of identity. The Brexit campaign have vocalised this, however in their keenness to avoid charges of jingoism, have made British identity relative to imagined British achievements. They have equated Britishness and its qualities with the strength of our post-EU trading options and our status as a respected authority on the global stage. The Brexit ideology is that the world will trade with us abundantly. Why? Because we’re British. Vote Leave are appealing to a group's need to return to an older Britain, with great success. Their rhetoric is that we no longer recognise Britain as the place of authority that it once was; it is out of our control and governed to its detriment by a very easy hate group: intellectual Europeans. But which Britain are we to return to? I suppose that is subjective. The Britain of before the EU? Not the sixties - our values were really thrown into question then - but the hazy days of plenty following the Second World War, when family was key, rationing was on its way out and the sense of community was at its strongest? We had a shiny new NHS and goods were cheap? When inherited class status was unable to sustain itself financially and so was installing its richest children at the top of the world's biggest industries? When the Windrush came and racism was born afresh? Or earlier still? When the nation was fighting tyranny all over the globe? We are still fighting tyranny - indeed, it seems we always have been. Earlier? Perhaps the Vote Leave campaign are idealising the period of Pax Brittanica, when we policed the world and were looked upon with respect, fear and admiration. When we were the leaders of industry, had an undefeatable navy and subjugated swathes of the world's citizens. Or the best of each? There are ways, many of which already in action, to assert one’s national pride without floating off into the North Sea. What is clear is that we can never rekindle the authority we had on the world stage, nor should we try. But more to the point is that strongly felt notions of national identity are such because they are cherry-picked from our cultural history. Yes, they are romanticised to the point of fiction in some cases, but far more troubling than pastoral fantasies of cricket pavilions and Pimms are the omissions of our cultural legacy that seem primed to germinate once again. With respect to these, the EU is an imperative organisation. There is no denying that global supremacy can only be achieved if one is willing to forgo certain moral standards. Disraeli’s Britain – as well as precedent and subsequent governments – is testament to that. In such times, national glory was not so readily associated with its deplorable human cost, and so ‘national interests’ such as intractable overseas wars were able to be more broadly persuasive. However, the world then witnessed two global atrocities whose monumental cost affected everyone personally. From these events were born efforts to ensure that such events never happened again. Such ambition was, perhaps, a little naïve, but the diluted version of the ideology is therefore even more relevant: events and actions that clearly intend to have inhuman consequences must be stopped by whatever means possible. An effort of this scale required ubiquitous governance: the EU. The world ratified treaties that enshrine the rights of every individual in international law. The debate is generating a scale of Britishness, which in turn is equated to virtuosity. By wishing to remain as part of the EU, it is popularly perceived that one is voting for a diluted, weaker version of Britishness, meaning diluted, weaker personhood. Despite the sheer stupidity of such a notion, the battle-lines for the soul of a nation are also those of one's own soul. How British do you feel? Is this a good feeling? If yes, vote leave. If no, vote remain. If both or neither, well you just haven’t been taught enough and will need to be sent to an academy for re-education in British Values. The fact that there are Brexit proponents from across the class and wealth spectrum speaks volumes for the deeply held importance of latent national identity crying to assert itself. Seceding from the EU would remove the supremacy of the European Court of Justice. For Brexiters, this is a tempting prospect. It will, to quote the Vote Leave website, allow us to “kick out those who make our laws” and enable us to install our cleverer, British lawmakers. But why is the provision of ECJ law a problem? According to the Telegraph, two thirds of British laws are made or influenced by the EU. This article makes no insightful mention of how the laws have been measured, and purported ‘actual’ figures sourced elsewhere range from 7% to 75%. Evidently, someone has got it a little confused. Are we discussing the individual number of words in EU legislation versus UK? Or individual laws? What about instances of the conflation of laws? What about instances where the UK and the EU have written near-identical laws? To whom do they belong? How is the term ‘law’ being defined in each instance? In any case, the Vote Leave tactic employs high numbers to imply that EU law affects the majority of our lives at home. This simply isn't the case on a quotidian level. It is theoretically possible, on the other hand, that the two-thirds being discussed concern a single legal issue, with the remaining one-third dealing with everything else. Therefore, a better analysis would be to examine which areas of legislation EU law affects. The European Union, contrary to much propaganda, was not set up to give MEPs luxurious expense accounts and facilitate swanky lunches. In fact, believe it or not, it is there to safeguard individuals within its member states against abuses of power. This can range from corporate monopolies to human rights abuses, fair immigration policy to conservation of the natural landscape. Therefore, while there are necessarily going to be instances of the UK (and other countries) having to ‘take one for the team’, overall, the intentions of the EU are to our benefit. However, the Leave campaign has propagated the problematic notion that we know what is best for us, and it doesn't concern the activities of Europe. Once again, this comes down to whether or not one feels sufficiently British. One’s identity as a Brit means that one is better placed to understand our needs than some indifferent European. It is like the parent that removes their child from stimulating environments because they know best what their child needs, and their only qualification of this expertise is their status as parent. If you’re sufficiently British, then you’d prefer to trust your elected government than the EU. It’s the most patriotic mindset to have. But what of trusting one’s government? If we vote to leave, it is neither you nor I that will define the image and action of the new Britain. It is whichever government and cabinet is installed at that time. It looks likely, therefore, that it will be Boris Johnson leading a Conservative government who are chomping at the bit to introduce legislation that could well run contrary to human rights, and certainly counter to EU legislation. Theresa May’s Snooper’s Charter tops the bill (no pun intended), but in our mythological dwarf-like lust for wealth, we are at risk of setting precedent that contravenes exactly the issues that the EU is installed to resist. The O2/Three merger is dangerously poised to create a monopoly on phone use, which the EU can prevent. Jeremy Hunt’s gradual enforcement of private healthcare in the UK could be prevented from monopolisation by the EU. Farm subsidies, corrupt as they currently are, would evaporate overnight if we left, opening the door for a massive corporate land-grab and the redesignation of swathes of the UK as something else entirely. The national move away from industry and toward finance would be unlikely to miss a chance to build mansions with attached hunting lodges for nice, rich people in Saudi Arabia and Russia. These are among the more benign examples. Others are far more troubling. David Cameron is regularly resurfacing plans to limit whom can strike. Boris Johnson bought demonstrably lethal water canon to disperse protestors, but was mercifully blocked from actually using them. Nevertheless, restrictions on where, how and when people can protest are becoming increasingly draconian, and we now know that the government have embedded undercover agents in peaceful protest groups for decades. More recently, it has emerged that researchers whose work is state-funded are no longer allowed to publish findings which criticise goovernment, government policy or regulation. In the words of a good friend of mine, this is the 'thin end of the wedge'. And, to quote the Manic Street Preachers, 'if you tolerate this, then your children will be next.'

In whose interest are such laws? Workers’ rights are safeguarded by the EU, but our government seems less concerned by the existence of such pesky things. Leaving the EU would hardly make Cameron (or whomever is in charge) suffer a sea-change of conscience in this regard. There is slip-and-slide regarding the degree of EU power in these matters (zero-hours contracts are not against EU law, for example), but to remove any oversight would be dangerous. The EU is vocally concerned with the provision of green laws, but if we judge Mr. Cameron by his actions, then he is demonstrably against them. A significant proportion of the Conservative party are climate-change deniers. It is, perhaps, merely incidental that our government is Conservative. Once outside of the EU, any ruling party is prey to despotism and totalitarianism. But what we are seeing now is a move toward a Britain where dissent is able to be legally quelled, where workers are legally prevented from striking unfair conditions, where corporate regulation is scrapped and monopolies allowed to flourish, where wealth disparities are encouraged to widen in the name of greater GDP. It would be theoretically possible to undo laws that enshrine the fairness of electioneering. A ruling party could become the ruling party; not via overt, Orwellian machinations but insidious changes to funding regulation that enable the richest party to win. And even if this future is unlikely (which, personally, I find doubtful), it is still fundamentally possible in the event that we leave the EU. The economic arguments, the arguments pertaining to free movement of peoples, and so on; these have compelling premises on either side. But what cannot be denied is that once we cede control to the UK government, we do so totally and permanently. Whether one lives in a liberal utopia or a despotic hell, this is a worrying prospect. ‘I want my country back’ is a mantra so asinine as to be untrue, but the sentiment underpinning it is real enough. While I have had no experience of anyone taking my country away, there are very many who feel that they have been robbed of it all: their land, their right to patriotism, and their identity. These are the people who would return to a Britain of ideological clarity and unity, which is the product being irresponsibly pedalled by the Leave campaign. Not only is this a fiction, but it legitimises the fears that drive hatred. When racists shout “get out of my country”, they can currently be logically rebuked with the idea that we willingly share our borders with other citizens of the EU. If we leave, we vindicate their ire. Many if not most of the things that made the ‘splendid isolation’ of the late nineteenth century so splendid were practices that would make even the most dyed-in-the-wool Conservative blush today. Regaining our sense of national identity in alignment with such ‘greatness’ is to tacitly endorse those ideas. Isolation it may be, but splendid, certainly not. And so we return to the seed that sprouted this affair: how British are you? Throughout my life, of all the qualifiers which I chose to identify me as myself, my nationality rarely had more than a small part to play. Not because I am ashamed of being British – far from it – but simply because it has never seemed necessary to assert that as a signifier of my personhood. I see, now, that such a qualifier is, for many people, determinant to their notion of self.

We have witnessed a burgeoning jingoism all around us in recent years. There was the Great British Bake Off. Outside the Costa Coffee on my high street a sign instructs customers to enjoy a “Great British Ham and Cheese Toastie”. What is British about that?! If anything, it’s a Croque Monsieur, a French invention. Food packaging constantly blares out the words “Farmed in Britain” overlaid on an image of the Union flag. If you Google 'the Great British', results are myriad and range from balloon companies to R&B festivals. We are constantly reminded that we are living in Great Britain, and that it needs to become greater. We have also seen a rise in racist attacks, Islamophobia, gross misinformation about the nationhood of jobseekers and the unemployed, negative propaganda about the lives of Muslims and the ubiquitous type-casting of BME people on TV and on stage. And more. What we are ‘reclaiming’ by asserting our Britishness is not a value system, but an aggressive and unwarranted superiority. Perhaps it has coincided with our growing irrelevance on the international stage, or our impotence in fields where we were once the leader. Perhaps, rather, it is due to a desperate need for cultural validation which was once so wordlessly present but has been eroded by the bland sterility of online culture. Perhaps, finally, we are becoming aware that while we were selling our own cultural practices down the river and adopting those of the USA, European countries were quietly maintaining theirs (mainly in rural areas) through the arts, social gatherings and the like. The theatres of Europe tend toward the international in outlook and concern, as well as the investigation of culture and foreign cultural history. Rarely (though not never) is European theatre about what is going on on the doorstep or within the host culture. British theatre has two obsessions: Shakespeare, and Britain. And as theatre responds to the concerns of society, the profusion of plays about our culture is a demonstration of just how confused we are about it. In true British fashion, we are not rekindling our cultural identity gently and through community, but by paying advertising companies to tell us what it is, blaming everyone else for its disappearance and shouting in our loudest voice to anyone that will listen that we’re British and proud again. But no one cares except those doing the shouting. It is immature; everyone else has had their cultural reckoning. We're generations behind the curve, and had all but got away with it until the emergence of this referendum. The biggest declaration of our need for cultural identity would be to leave the EU. But it would be reverting to a Britishness which, for good reason, has passed into memory.